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Google is no longer asking — feed the AI or you’re not in search results

pivot-to-ai.com Google is no longer asking — feed the AI or you’re not in search results

Kids today might not realize that, for about twenty years there, you could go to Google Search and find things you were looking for! Google now features a hilariously unreliable AI summary as the f…

Google is no longer asking — feed the AI or you’re not in search results
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  • As I understand it, this is only about using search results for summaries. If it's just that and links to the source, I think it's OK. What would be absolutely unacceptable is to use the web in general as training data for text and image generation (=write me a story about topic XY).

    • If it's just that and links to the source, I think it's OK.

      No one will click on the source, which means the only visitor to your site is Googlebot.

      What would be absolutely unacceptable is to use the web in general as training data for text and image generation.

      This has already happened and continues to happen.

      • No one will click on the source, which means the only visitor to your site is Googlebot.

        That was the argument with the text snippets from news sources. Publishers successfully lobbied for laws to be passed in many countries that required search engine operators to pay fees. It backfired when Google removed the snippets from news sources that demanded fees from Google. Their visitors dropped by a massive amount, 90% or so, because those results were less attractive to Google users to click on than the nicer results with a snippet and a thumbnail. So "No one will click on the source" has already been disproven 10 or so years ago when the snippet issue was current. All those publishers have entered a free of charge licensing agreement with Google and the laws are still in place. So Google is fine, upstart search engines are not because those cannot pressure the publishers into free deals.

        This has already happened and continues to happen.

        With Gemini?

    • that latter will be the case rather sooner than later I'm afraid. It's just a matter of time with Google.

      • that latter will be the case rather sooner than later I’m afraid. It’s just a matter of time with Google.

        If that will actually be the case and passes legal challenges, basically all copyright can be abolished which would definitively have some upsides but also downsides. All those video game ROM decompilation projects would be suddenly in the clear, as those are new source code computer-generated from copyrighted binary code, so not really different from a AI generated image based on a copyrighted image used as training data. We could also ask Gemini write a full-length retelling of Harry Potter and just search, replace all trademarked names, and sell that shit. Evil companies could train an AI on GNU/Linux source codes and tell it to write an operating system. Clearly derived work from GPL code but without any copyright to speak of, all that generated code could be legally closed. I don't like that.

102 comments